While still a bit light on major gameplay reveals, one of the more
interesting appointments I’ve had so far at E3 2011 was with
none other than CCP where we learned a bit more about how
style="font-style: italic;">DUST 514
will factor into the preexisting
style="font-style: italic;">EVE Online
universe. With the next installment of the
style="font-style: italic;">Incarna
expansion for
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
just weeks away, it seemed like a great time to introduce players to
not only the long-awaited ability to step out of their pods and into
the stations, but explain how many of the systems introduced in
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
over the past few years have contributed to laying the ground work for
style="font-style: italic;">DUST 514’s
arrival.

Of course one of the biggest announcements for
style="font-style: italic;">DUST
this week was that it will be a PS3 exclusive, but we also learned
it’s due to release sometime next summer. Given the typical
release schedule for
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
expansions, a summer 2012 release for
style="font-style: italic;">DUST
sounds about right given that there will likely need to be more tech
introduced into the game that will help the connection between the two
titles be fully realized once
style="font-style: italic;">DUST
is ready to launch.

So if you’re anything like me and are really looking forward
to sinking your hooks into the shooter side of the
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
universe, we still have a little while to wait unfortunately. We did,
however, learn a few more details on how deep the connections between
the two games will be along with some insights to what kinds of things
have already been introduced in
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
to lay some important groundwork.

In fact, this process began as far back as 2007, and was a major factor
in the release of
style="font-style: italic;">Dominion
expansion and the visual revamps to planets. Since planets will
obviously soon play a much larger role than they have to date,
there’s an interesting, direct progression from that initial
visual pass to where development on
style="font-style: italic;">DUST
has come so far.

In terms of specific details I was able to squeeze out of the CCP team
in a brief Q&A session following their official event
presentation, here are some of the key points I was able to discover.

The same corporations can exist in both titles. Likewise, if you have
an alliance in
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
it will also automatically exist in
style="font-style: italic;">DUST.
An important aspect of both that’s worth noting is that
– while corps and alliances cross the atmospheric threshold
between games, your characters will not.

So your character in
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
won’t have a copy / clone planet-side, nor will you be able
to create a grunt on the ground and decide that you want to earn their
pilot’s license. The two games may share a universe and even
be played on the same shard, but considering that both titles are
played on different platforms it only makes sense that a line had to be
drawn in the sand for some things.

Familiar elements from
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
will appear in
style="font-style: italic;">DUST
as well beyond some of the more obvious things you would expect the two
to share. For example, we were shown the familiar Fitting screen to
help illustrate how ground combat vehicles can be upgraded and
specialized in much the same way that ships can.

A common issue I’ve seen in most console RPGs is that complex
UI elements simply don’t work, or tend to rely far too
heavily on scrolling through long menus just to perform basic tasks.
That’s not necessarily even due to bad design - at least not
on the part of game developers – but simply a limitation of
gamepads as the primary interface.

So expect that certain UI elements, such as the fitting screen
mentioned above, will be a mix between something you’re
visually familiar with from
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
while still being somewhat simplified to work better on consoles.

Another thing I asked about is whether or not there would be a shared
recruitment system for
style="font-style: italic;">EVE
corps built into
style="font-style: italic;">Dust 514,
and while I was told that type of thing is currently being looked into,
as with many aspects of gameplay, it’s still a bit too early
for CCP to discuss in detail. The one thing they did assure us,
however, is that we shouldn’t expect to see
style="font-style: italic;">EVE’s
notorious learning cliff make a return in
style="font-style: italic;">DUST,
so we’re looking forward to seeing how the shooter gameplay
shapes up in the coming months.

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our
DUST 514
Game Page.